She's been in the marksmanship program at her school and doing very well, so we bought her a Ruger Youth 10/22 from a local pawn shop for her present. She's been asking for her own rifle for awhile, but over the last year she's really worked hard to earn it.

What she wanted was one of those youth model Crickets with the synthetic teal stock, but we looked at one it's just barely better than a toy. This Ruger will last her a lifetime, and it aligns with my morals to buy her a used rifle rather than a new one. Wins all the way around.

In other news, I've been listening to a new podcast and really enjoying it. New to me anyway, the podcast has been running for like seven year or something. It's the Cafe Racer Podcast, I recommend it to anyone that enjoys podcasts and motorcycles. Despite the name, they talk about all kinds of bikes, not just cafe racers, and I like the show enough that I'm even supporting them on Patreon. There really aren't a lot of good motorcycle podcasts out there, so finding one worth supporting is a treat.

I haven't done any of the stuff with Ursula I mentioned wanting to do yet, but I really need to. Temps have been cooling off around here, with overnight lows in the 30s, so I haven't ridden much. We wont put the bikes up for the winter though, we manage to ride at least two or three days every month in the winter. Not having to mess with trickle chargers or fuel stabilizers is wonderful. We also intend on picking up some heated gear this winter, so we may get to ride even more than normal.

Actually I did it last Tuesday, the 8th. It went pretty well, got all my cowlings off without breaking anything and found all the leads I was looking for. The Connie forum I'm also a member of provided a great tip about a factory accessory circuit in the front wire boot, and I was able to find that very quickly and tap into it to supply the switch for my relay. A couple more power and ground wires and everything came together very nicely.

Putting everything back together was not as easy. Serves me right for leaving a bike taken apart for a whole week. I lost several of those plastic snap rivets. Not sure at all where they could have ended up, but they are GONE. I did a little poking around and realized that the grommets the rivets snap into are also threaded for an M5 bolt, so I bought a dozen of those suckers at Home Depot and put all that back together this afternoon. Now it's just the final panels that cover the battery and I'll be done.

After a lot of thought, I sacrificed the Connie's glove box for the fuse box. Not sacrificed exactly, it's still there, but now it's full of electrical components. I hardly use it at all, so the space will be much better utilized this way. As big as the Connie is, there aren't a lot of places to stash a six-slot fuse box with built in ground bus.

I did take some footage explaining how everything comes together and why, and now that it's all back together I'll do some more filming to show the final installation. So expect another YouTube video soon on the subject. This would make a great winter project for anyone who wants to be able to add some accessories to their bike, and it really is easy once you've got all the components together.

That's all for now! So glad I finally got this done! Next project, new tires for Carrie's CTX.

My daughters and I went to the shooting range this morning while Carrie was teaching, to try out the Ruger 10/22 we got my youngest for her birthday.

I took the first few shots with the rifle to get the scope 0'ed, and it was pretty bad. With an 18x18 target at 48yds, I literally didn't even get on the page. After a midrange barrage and some adjustments, things started happening.

Both girls are shooting roughly 4 or 5 inch groups at 48yds, which I'm pretty impressed with. I think we'll do a lot more shooting this winter and it's sure to improve. At $5 an hour it's ridiculously cheap entertainment.

I've got lasagna in the oven right now and it's going to be delicious.

Oh, and, a new item arrived today for our next review! Stay tuned for that.

This morning I did an unboxing, installation, and a little preliminary filming for the new product I'm reviewing. Initial results are interesting.

Once I'd done as much of that as I could do, me and the kids piled into the car and headed out to the motorcycle range to visit Carrie and help with the class. It was a little chilly for riding bikes, but everyone was in good spirits and it all went really well.

Now we're relaxing and enjoying a couple of beers in the quiet. Tomorrow morning the work week begins again.

Things have been pretty busy around our household. This fall we came back to the basement bathroom project with a vengeance, and we've made a lot of progress. Toilet and sink are in, shower stall is 60% complete. We've done some work on the rest of the basement as well, putting up new walls to create a workshop/store room and rocking in the rest of the space. Right now my main focus is finishing the shower stall and finishing the built-in entertainment center the previous occupants started. To give you an idea how long this project has been evolving, penciled notes on the framing state "VCR" with measurements. Planned obsolescence...

In other news, we'll be attending the Progressive International Motorcycle Show in Dallas, TX in January. Keep an eye out for posts from that, we'll be filming and interviewing and just generally getting into the mix. We're staying in the Magnolia Hotel too, I think you're supposed to call these old hotels "grand old dames" or something. Anyway, we're looking forward to some Texas barbecue and chatting with industry folk. It will also be my son's first time flying somewhere, so I guess he'll get the window seat.

As always, thanks for reading. Be back soon with whatever else comes to mind.

Sounds like a good time will be had. Enjoy Texas and hope your boy does well flying. Might want to consider some sea bands for him. I fly a couple times a month for work and when I started this (about 2 years ago) I found I got bad nausea from the bank turns near take off and landing and the sea bands helped a lot without taking anything that could make one drowsy (not that I’m opposed to medication, but this worked for me) they’re pretty cheap on amazon.

Sounds like a good time will be had. Enjoy Texas and hope your boy does well flying. Might want to consider some sea bands for him. I fly a couple times a month for work and when I started this (about 2 years ago) I found I got bad nausea from the bank turns near take off and landing and the sea bands helped a lot without taking anything that could make one drowsy (not that I’m opposed to medication, but this worked for me) they’re pretty cheap on amazon.

Thanks for the tip Pete, it didn't occur to us to take anything in case he gets airsick. I'll order a couple from Amazon and toss them in our carry-on. And thanks for the well wishes too.

I enjoy flying, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it more than a couple times a year. Not that I'd mind the flying, but airports can be a struggle here in the US.

Hi Everyone! I wanted to take a minute and solicit some input from you all.

The Progressive International Motorcycle Show is touring right now, and we're going to be at the Dallas event Jan 3-5! I mentioned that in my previous post.

Anyway, there's going to be about 100 exhibitors there. I'm posting the exhibitors list here, please look through it briefly and let me know about any companies or products you're specifically interested in. If you have questions for them, post them here and I'll try to get them get answered while we're doing our interviews.

And that's the list. A couple we're really interested in is the camera set by Sykik, everything that Mosko Moto makes, and of course the two new bikes from Harley Davidson, the PanAmerica and the Bronx. We also want to check out the riding pants from Tobacco Motorwear. What else should we be sure not to miss?

Hey TMFans! It's the second day of IMS here in Dallas, and today I'm going to do some livestreaming on our YouTube channel for your enjoyment! I'm gonna get on the Wheelie Machine and try my hand at lofting, which of course I've never done. Sure to be interesting! We'll livestream a few other things from the show today as well, including the Harley Davidson LiveWire! They've got a couple of them bolted down and they're letting people climb on and spin 'em up! Those scissor-cut gears sound AMAZING.

Follow the link to the TMW YouTube channel in my signature and get subscribed if you haven't already, so you don't miss a moment of the fun today! And be sure to click the notification bell in YouTube so it alerts you when we go live!

Daytime temps have been in the high 40s for the last week, we'll be getting the bikes out soon! It's going to be a busy Spring, we've got lots of exciting stuff lined up!

Make sure you're checking out the YouTube feed as well, we've been uploading lots of stuff from IMS.

On the topic of YouTube, I wanted to take a minute and throw some bandwidth boost to a buddy of mine, his channel has been absolutely KILLING it over on YouTube and I'm hoping to send some audience his way. It's HelmetHead, from the UK, and he's got a lot of great content on his channel. Dude rides a Bonnie and a Tiger, but he's looking at swapping them out for something a little more chrome-ey! Exciting times.

I read a really interesting article today about vision and avoiding collisions in traffic, written by a fighter pilot. Pretty cool stuff, and I wanted to share the link here. We're all waiting for the snow and ice to thaw, and while we're doing that, articles like these can help us get ready for the riding season.

It's been a busy couple of weeks over in our neck of the woods, work and kids mostly. This is the first weekend in a while we've had some downtime.

I'll be doing some more work in the basement, finishing the tile surround for our electric fireplace and maybe installing the shower wall insert in the downstairs bathroom so I can start tiling the walls in there. Fun stuff.

Depending on how those projects go, I'm hoping to have time tomorrow to pull Carrie's CTX out of it's berth in the garage. Once it's in the open I can install the grip warmers I bought her for Christmas, and then Baby Shark is off to the shop for a new back shoe and some fresh oil. Weather's on a uptick in our region and I think we'll be riding pretty regularly in about three weeks. Maybe sooner.

For now though, I'm just sipping my coffee at the computer and putting in my computer time. I'm going to watch some YouTube videos from my subscriptions (Helmet Head has a new one out if you missed it!) and then do some dithering about with some royalty-free audio. I'm trying to put together enough music and sound effects to really add some texture to our 2020 video lineup. Exciting stuff happening on that front!

Speaking of exciting stuff, did everyone notice that TMW broke our personal record?? If you scroll to the bottom of the Forum Index page you see a notation at the bottom: Most users ever online was 8488 on Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:44 pm
Traffic is picking up considerably here in the Forums and it's only the first week of February! Hold on to your keyboards because here it comes!

Oh, and a final note. Carrie bought me a didgeridoo! We've been shopping for a bass guitar for our son to learn on (a new interest of his) and there was a "didge" at one of the music stores we were browsing in. I've loved them ever since I watched Dave Crowe on YouTube, (no link for that one, you'll have to put in the effort yourself but it's worth it!) and it was cheap, so Carrie bought it on the spot. I have no idea how to play it, and almost no musical talent at all, but I don't think it's the sort of instrument you really have to be a musician to play. Or at least, make it make noise, LoL. I'm sure to throw in some footage of me messing with it in our upcoming videos and that'll be hilarious. Don't miss it!

So that's all for now. I'm off to refill my coffee and try to do some audio mixing. Thanks for playing!

Wow! There's been an incredible amount of traffic on the forums this week! Currently sitting at 12,319 most guests online ever, which is the third or fourth time it's reset this week. Crazy! Glad to see you all here, don't be shy! Say hello.

Updates. The plan to take Carrie's CTX to the shop fell through, her battery didn't survive the winter. It's on it's third year so that's not bad, but it meant we didn't manage to get it to the shop. We took the plunge and ordered one of those new-fangled Li-Ion batteries for it, and it's just arrived tonight. Shockingly light and quite a bit smaller than the old one. We'll take some pictures and document the upgrade. Reviews and opinions on the Li-Ion batteries are ALL OVER THE PLACE, and holy ess are they controversial. One innocent question in an FB Group and it's like a bomb went off. We're hoping to write an article about the change, I'm pretty excited.

Finished the tiling on the fireplace in the basement, just gotta do a little caulking around the edges to really clean it up. Looks really good though, we're excited to entertain down there and host our D&D group. Nothing says Dungeons & Dragons nerds like green fire.

It's been a busy weekend. Youngest daughter had an archery meet tonight and shot very well, super impressed and a little intimidated. We bought her her own bow so she can practice at home, which when added to the Ruger 10/22 we bought her for Christmas makes her room the armory, LoL.

Tomorrow we're going to the RV and Outdoor Recreation expo in SLC. We're still hunting for the right motorhome, that older Winnebago we bought a while back has just been a horrible money pit. Gonna offload that this spring to a motivated buyer.

I suppose that's everything worth mentioning for now. Temps were warm for the past few days (which was why I was planning to get Baby Shark to the shop) but they're taking a turn for the chilly again this week. It wont be much longer before we're riding every day again though.

OH! One other thing! I finally ponied up and signed up as a Patron for Helmet Head, the YouTuber I've mentioned a couple times in here. He mentions it in his latest video, and he's got a fundraising project idea that sounds incredible. Give his latest episode a watch and throw the guy a thumbs-up, if you're so inclined. You can find it HERE.